Posts by Matthew Poole
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Another point about Idiot/Shithead's rants that only occurred to me in the shower this morning (amazing what a shower does for one's cognition) is that if Darth Brownlee or Lord Uber-fuhrer Carter tried to play the state of emergency card to trample people outside Canterbury, there'd be any number of people just itching to get the High Court to go all "ultra vires" on the offending arse.
The powers provided in the CDEMA may not be able to be legally examined, but their utilisation sure as hell can. Trying to emplace curfews or compel information from people in Whangarei or Bulls would be well outside the ordinary and reasonable use of a disaster area CD controller.
ETA: I see that Andrew Geddis already handled this one.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to George Darroch,
Officer in command Dave Lawrie says he does not believe the CTV site is now surviveable
Yeah, famous last words. Earthquake (ETA: and building collapse in general) history is replete with examples of people who shouldn’t have lived, but did.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to recordari,
Not quite. Effective for yesterday there’s reinsurance up to $4.8b in claims, except that the EQC has to pay for the first $1.5b. So $3.3b of $4.8b is paid by reinsurers, $1.5b is paid by EQC, and anything above $4.8b is paid by EQC. It's like a policy limit on your insurance, along with an excess. You pay the excess, your insurance pays up to the limit of cover, but if your excess plus the limit of cover isn't enough you have to pay the rest.
Right now they have enough money, but the scale of damage is so much more enormous than September that it’s entirely possible that the reinsurance limit will be breached and then EQC’s solvency could become a problem.
Thanks for that link, DS. Hadn’t looked at the legislative situation on the matter.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Russell Brown,
AMI Stadium is stable as a structure but Stuff say the surrounding liquefaction will take months to sort out.
Plus, of course, if there's liquefaction in the vicinity the long-term stability of the structure is questionable.
As if Christchurch needed more bad news right now. -
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Ross Mason,
Chancellor sunk 3m in 10 minutes according to Stuff
Wow. That's a building that won't be inhabitable, if it remains standing of its own volition.
I'm beginning to wonder if EQC is approaching the point of bankruptcy, given that it's on the hook for the first $1.5b from both of September and yesterday, and also for the balance of yesterday (the reinsurance limit didn't get breached for September) over and above its reinsurance up to $4.8b. It's got $6.5b, $1.5b is accounted for with September, another $1.5b is the "excess" on yesterday, that leaves $3.5b to cover whatever costs there are above $4.8b from yesterday.
Oh, and that doesn't include Boxing Day, which was a separate event as well.Just to lighten the mood :s
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Sacha,
#spotlessmind
Messy desk, messy mind, etc ;)
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Dismal Soyanz,
especially after Kobe, noting that the Forsyth Barr building internal stairs fell (built 1989, I believe)
Wasn't Oakland in '89 a huge turning point for earthquake codes in the parts of the world that have such things? Much of what fell in Kobe was built well before the lessons of the (then) next-most-recent significantly fatal "developed locale" earthquake could be digested, after all.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Just looked at his twitter stream. What a fucking pillock, and no apologies for my French. Once again he shoots his mouth off based on his misinterpretation (or outright ignorance) of the law, and then wonders why people call him a dick.
And, in this case, a very abusive, obnoxious dick.A state of emergency grants powers to the controller only within the area covered by the emergency. So nothing could be requisitioned from outside Christchurch or Canterbury (depending on the area of local emergency) without a national emergency being declared. But, of course, he's too busy frothing at the mouth to read the legislation properly - spittle is notorious for its impact on legibility - and, instead, we get that shit.
I'm going back to my blissful ignorance of his rants now.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to George Darroch,
Singapore, Australia, and UK less earthquake experienced, but very gratefully received.
Ultimately USAR is USAR. A collapsed building is a collapsed building, and the training is pretty standardised. More people means more simultaneous rescues, more people to rotate on and off the piles. The standard is for a team to be able to function for 72 hours straight off the plane with no support, so the more teams we get in the more rescue experts we can keep going for weeks before they've been run into the ground.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
said they were transferring resources to the PGG building where they were more confident of finding survivors.
Also reports of fears the Hotel Grand Chancellor may collapse, so a two-block radius has been evacuated which I think encompasses the CTV building. The rule of thumb for impending collapse is one-and-a-half times the height of the structure is the danger area, and in this case they'll also be worried about anything it might collapse onto that could also then collapse.